All posts tagged ‘stephanie Brown’

This weeks adventures in climbing the cliffs of insanity include a GPS that clearly is part of Skynet, a new X-Men book from Marvel that completely eliminates the “Y” chromosome, and an interesting discussion on that nature of Superman that includes Mark Waid and J. Michael Stracyznski.

But first up, a new all-ages (seven and up) graphic novel, Earthward, from one of my favorite comic writers, Bryan Q. Miller, and artist Marcio Takara.

Miller started as an intern on the Smallville television series before he started writing comics. He said Earthward is a story that’s been planned for a long time but not always as a comic. Miller said when he saw Takara’s art, he knew it would be perfect and the comic was born. If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, the initial 110-page graphic novel will only be the first of many.

No human alive… no human for at least the last 500 years, has seen the fabled “Earth” in person. It was taken from us, stolen by “THE HIDDEN” – a deadly race from beyond the galaxy who “moved the stars themselves” to hide our home.

Or so… that’s how the story goes…

It’s the story of a group of kids from ages twenty to six whose parents suddenly disappear from their space-based research facility while the kids are on a standard supply run. The parents, who have been secretly searching for the lost Earth, leave a note: Don’t Come Looking For Us.

Kids. They never listen.

Miller answered questions this week about the characters and what he hopes to do with the story, and about why he’s so cognizant of younger readers enjoying his work, especially after meeting them in person.

GeekMom: How did you develop each of the kids in the story? How do they play off on each other?

Bryan Q. Miller: The “family” of the Mercury Six really came from a desire to to try and hit as many age-ranges of character as possible.

When you think about it, anything we read or watch (or listen to) is a big Rorschach ink blot – any character has the chance to be a given viewer/reader/listener’s audience surrogate. Goonies did this pretty well – Bran and the girls on the high end; Mikey and Data, et. al. on the lower end. And everyone had (in a good way) a very specific, distinct personality and function.

That’s the goal for the Mercury Six.

Daniella

Ben’s the eldest (at 20), and bears the burden of responsibility the easiest and most often. Alyssa (17), his sister, is jealous of the responsibility Ben is always given, and is desperate to prove herself to everyone and anyone – but she’s also not quite patient enough to learn how to do things right.

Smack (15) is the hustler. He’s a little Han Solo who pretends to care about nothing except himself. Cody and Trin (12, twins) are the little know-it-alls who respect and love structure and authority – so they love Ben, and absolutely DESPISE Smack. And then there’s little Daniella — everyone looks after little Daniella (6). Though, as the only survivor of a Pirate raid, she tends to be the most capable of taking care of herself.

GM: Is the mystery of the parent’s disappearance solved in the graphic novel or will that plotline be continued in the (hopefully) next adventure?

Villain? Or just alien?

Miller: We find out the why and the how during the course of the this book, but that’s only the beginning of the adventure. Hopefully, we’ll have the opportunity to create one more of these each year for the next several. If people are willing to read it, I certainly have a plan to tell it.

GM: What’s your favorite sequence in the comic, something that you know when readers read it, it will be eye-popping?

Miller: There are certainly sequences I’m excited to see – a bit of adventuring in a Pirate Asteroid, a dash of danger inside of an automated Factory Ship – but I think what Marcio nails the best are our quieter moments with the kids. And anything between little Daniella and Teach (who are our little unabashedly Miyazaki pair) really pops.

Stephanie Brown as Nightwing, from the last issue of her Batgirl comic series. This is apparently not okay for DC fans to read.

It could be the plot of a young adult novel:

Teenage girl from a broken home discovers that her father is a super villain and decides to be a hero to work against him. She has to deal with other crimefighters who don’t think she’s qualified, an unplanned pregnancy, a horrific torture and beating, a miraculous rebirth to do charity work, and a triumphant return as a respected hero. Unfortunately, that return is abruptly ended at the hands of an all-powerful and unknowable foe.

Not ready to give up, she’s about to escape the banishment when that mysterious foe quashes her down again.

That’s the only conclusion I can draw after it was announced by Smallville Season 11 writer Bryan Q. Miller in a TV Guide interview that Batman will finally be making his first appearance in the Smallville universe, in issue #5, accompanied by a female sidekick revealed to be none other than Stephanie Brown as Nightwing.

Smallville Season 11 is a digital DC comic that is a continuation of the popular Smallville television series that ran for ten seasons on the WB/CW networks. Print editions appear after the shorter digital chapters, which are available for 99 cents at Comixology.

It says something about her place in the comic book world that the news of Batman’s long-awaited appearance in the popular series was lost on comic sites amid all the cheering for Stephanie Brown’s second return from the world of dead and limboed heroes.

The long journey from her creation in 1992 is an example of not only how badly some female characters are treated in the DC Universe but also how sometimes even editorial fiat isn’t enough to destroy a popular character. Fan support, creator support, and the burgeoning digital market can open the way to a return.

The panel which birthed the term "Women in Refrigerators" from Green Lantern

As you may have noticed if you read GeekMom regularly, I’m a passionate reader of superhero comics and have been since I can remember.

But, being a woman (d’uh), it’s impossible to miss the issues with the portrayal of female characters over the years.

Nowhere was outrage more consolidated than in a site called Women in Refrigerators. WiR tried to detail the various deaths, depowerments and violence against women in superhero comics and how different it was from the violence and death directed at the men.

It wasn’t ever meant to be a comprehensive list of bad things done to women in comics. Instead, it was created to start a discussion, point to happenings and say “so, why do you all think this happened?”

Now, Women Write About Comics has asked comic bloggers this week to write on a single topic: Women in Refrigerators, Thirteen Years Later. They already have a number of links of with sometimes divergent points of view on the topic.

I have somewhat of a unique perspective on WiR in that I’m a co-moderator for Gail Simone, one of the founders of WiR, both on her current forums on Jinxworld and her previous forums at ComicBookResources.com. Simone is under contract for DC and has written Birds of Prey,Secret Six, Welcome to Tranquility,Wonder Woman, Superman, and several other titles. That’s somewhat of a big flashing light that things have changed since the site went up.

But they haven’t changed completely.

When people came to the forums to yell at Gail Simone for being an uppity feminist or claim that she hated men or that the whole site was idiotic, I had to deal with them. Over and over, Simone merely directed people to the site, claiming that those who were yelling about WiR probably hadn’t read it fully. If we could really move past WiR, those people would never show up.

So, I think before I can talk about WiR now, we need to go back to the site: Women in Refrigerators. The most interesting part isn’t the list or the fact that women were badly served by many superhero storylines.

Most of us here know that already.

It’s the page of respondents, a list of comic creators commenting on the issue. And, wow, do many of the male creators unload on their colleagues. Read Mark Waid’s response in particular. A sentence:

“Most males are fans of or in comics because they’re social misanthropes who can’t get laid or can’t keep girlfriends and they’re pissed about it on some level. There’s the famous–and true–anecdote of the Hellcat story that consists mostly of her being beaten to a pulp by a man, a story that BY THE *WILDEST* COINCIDENCE was written by a man in the middle of harsh divorce proceedings.”

Yes and No. To illustrate my point, I give you the comics history of one Stephanie Brown: Spoiler, Robin, dead, Batgirl, limbo.

Stephanie Brown first appeared as the daughter of the supervillain Cluemaster who wanted to stop her father’s crimes. She “spoiled” them, hence “The Spoiler.” She was one of those characters who quickly took on a life of her own.

The highlights of her existence:

Major supporting character in the Robin series written by Chuck Dixon starring the Tim Drake Robin.

Became Robin after Bruce Wayne fired Tim because editorial said he should.

Fired from being Robin for “incompetence” by the same Bruce Wayne after a very short time.

Decided to prove to Batman she was competent, ended up starting an editorial-mandated “gang-war” by stealing something from Bruce’s files. (Editorial also mandated, apparently, that Bruce not have any security passcodes on said files.)

Steph’s creator, Chuck Dixon, came back to Robin for a short time and brought Stephanie back to life. Cool.

Dixon left DC again shortly after and Steph’s fate seemed uncertain until she returned as the new Batgirl in an outstanding series by Bryan Q. Miller.

Stephanie’s time as Batgirl ended in midstream as DC rebooted titles last September. Stephanie was replaced by a now-younger version of Barbara Gordon, no longer the information specialist Oracle.

Stephanie is now in limbo. In some interviews, she’s supposed to still be around but she’s yet to appear in the rebooted universe.

So, what to make of all this?

To me, the bottom line is that the problem lies behind the scenes.

DC right now has two female creators on their new rebooted titles, Simone and Ann Nocenti, who’s taking over Green Arrow. Without a strong creator who sells a lot of books to stand up for a character, like Geoff Johns did with his Green Lantern characters or Grant Morrison did with Batman or even Scott Snyder with Batman, female characters are going to get overlooked–let’s not even get started on the other missing Batgirl, Cassandra Cain– in favor of other pet characters who happen to be male because, well, 98 percent of the creators and the vast majority of editorial are male. (One bright exception to this is Batwoman, who is backed by the amazing talented artist and writer, J.H. Williams.)

So while the characters in the comics might be treated better right now than thirteen years ago, the real change, the one needed behind the scenes, is sorely lacking. Things will never truly change until that does.